Israeli Hackers Hit Saudi Stock Exchange

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Israeli hackers quickly retaliated yesterday against Monday's
online disruption of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al
Airlines' websites by launching a counterstrike, taking down the
websites of the Saudi Stock Exchange and the Abu Dhabi Securities
Exchange.

Going by the name "IDF-Team," the Israeli hacking group
reportedly paralyzed Tadawul, the Saudi stock exchange site, and
caused significant delays to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange
(ADX) in a series of coordinated cyberattacks, according to the
Israeli newspaper
Haaretz.

In a statement posted to Pastebin, the IDF-Team (named after the
country's military, the Israeli Defense Force) said its hack was
payback for the unsuccessful attempt to take down El Al and the
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).

"If the lame attacks from Saudi Arabia will continue, we will
move to the next level which will disable these sites longer
term," IDF-Team wrote.
That disruption "may come to weeks or even months. You have been
warned."

A separate Pastebin post from the hackers listed Arrabbank.ae and
sabb.com (Arab banking sites) as targets, along with dubai.ae,
eida.gov.ae (the Emirates Identity Authority), airport.ae and
saudiairlines.com.

The retaliatory cyberstrike was the latest move in an ongoing
battle that began Jan. 3 when a Saudi hacker, 0xOmar, posted
15,000 Israelis' credit card numbers. An Israeli hacker
responded, which drew the ire of Anonymous, the all-seeing
hacking network. Anonymous stepped in on the Arabs' side and
leaked login details for Israeli industrial-control systems.

On Monday (Jan. 16), Arab hackers struck again. Possibly led by
0xOmar and his new "Nightmare" crew, hackers launched
denial-of-service attacks that disrupted Israel's
TASE and El Al websites. While the sites were down, both the
airline and the stock exchange continued operating normally, with
no trades or flights affected.

With distinct political agendas and a captive audience, including
government officials in both countries, this certainly will not
be the final move for either side.